But the PhD experience is so varied that it's not really the fault of the interviewees/authors! They probably really did have it this good! There is also survivorship bias. And people who have the grit to finish a PhD probably don't want to openly admit weakness on the Internet or, more likely, burn bridges (it's hard to be anonymous about this sort of stuff). Even after they finish the PhD, they still have to worship the ground of their overlords to keep those letters of recommendation flowin'. So we have mostly these rosy happy "learn you a PhD" stories. Not good.
I know you are out there: Young, highly motivated, highly intelligent, unbeatable willpower. You need to know just how bad it can be. You're not getting the whole story.
I'm not talking about "oh no, I might not finish" or "oh gee, maybe it will take me eight years but I'll try real hard and get through." I'm talking real life risks to your mental and physical health, destruction of relationships, opportunity cost, and (potentially) the vaporization of that awesome scientific career that you spent over a decade building because the one person in charge of you with no oversight decided they didn't like you.
I've seen so many amazing, kind, bright, talented, hard-working people exploited for years on end only to be thrown out into the academic garbage can. But the stakes go far beyond academia - what will you do about the panic attacks that continue for years, and years, and years after you finish? How about the insomnia and screaming nightmares? I bet that at least one of your fellow students will wind up in a psychiatric hospital. It could be you.
"Oh come on now," you say. "It's just science! What's so scary about a math problem or writing a few paragraphs. You're either a marshmallow, you're overreacting, or maybe you just didn't have what it takes." The science is the easy part. The hard work is the easy part. It's the people who will rule over you, the people who can (and do) ruin you. These articles always talk about a benevolent best-chum advisor/faculty that you have long conversations with and then go have another cup of tea with. But you never hear about that one narcissist/psychopath on your committee that has done everything in his power to get you out of the program, the micromanager, the manipulator, the grotesque exploitation.
In PhD land, you are at the complete mercy of a very small collection of merciless people who know that you exist to be exploited, and they know that they have you right where they want you. You better hope that those people are benevolent or neutral. In the case of many people I know, this was not the case.
When people write articles about "choosing an advisor" and "how will I know he/she is the one for me," they make it sound like a decision about whether to get a puppy or a kitten. Consider this scenario: You open a dialogue with someone whose work you have studied for years, they offer you a position in their lab, you quit your job and drag your family halfway across the US for this "golden opportunity", and then you find out that this person is by far the biggest jerk that you have ever met and you cannot work with them. What do you do then? Where do you put all of that expertise that you acquired? I've seen this happen over and over again: You start from scratch - time to grind and level up all over again, but now you're not so sure you're good at the thing you're doing - you could be terrible at it.
I could go on and on. Maybe I will someday.
Well, hopefully this will inspire a little more well-rounded picture of what else it can be like to go through with a PhD.